


Monster Girl

by idrilhadhafang



Series: Varre Ren [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 12 Months of AU, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Creepy Snoke (Star Wars), Dark Rey (Star Wars), Dark Side Rey, Darkfic, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Not Underage, POV Rey (Star Wars), Rey Needs A Hug, Rey as Snoke’s apprentice, Rey-Centric, Young Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 07:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17341520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Snoke chooses a different apprentice.





	Monster Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: In which I try the 12 months of AU challenge, and try this: https://damagectrlwrites.tumblr.com/post/181180593198/12-months-of-au-january-break-the-timeline. More of a prequel than anything else, though.

As far as Rey Navarre knows, she’s always heard the voice in her head.

It’s a small voice, but it’s a comfort in the worst of times. When she was a little girl, it comforted her while her parents fought. She can remember fragments and pieces of what they fought about, the slur of their words when they were engaging in the Bad Stuff. (That was what little Rey called it, because all of it seemed like a potion that transformed her parents into raging monsters. Older Rey knows it’s alcohol. She’s only twelve, and has never tried it, but she knows the smell too well) Now, in the darkness of the AT-ST she calls home, it soothes her when she tries to get to sleep in vain. When even her island doesn’t help. When even her island seems to be on fire.

The voice is something she can only hear, and sometimes it shows her terrible things, but at least when it talks to her, Rey can be assured that she’s far from alone.

***

It’s one day, three years later, after she’s gone out to scavenge parts from a fallen TIE fighter that she meets the strange figure. He’s tall, clad in a gold robe that makes Rey think of a trader coming through Jakku. His face is scarred as well — Rey can’t help but wonder what exactly happened to him to cause such horrifying scars.

“Are you looking for someone?” says the figure, and Rey notices that even his voice sounds regal, almost like she imagines a nobleman’s to be like.

“I can handle myself,” Rey says, “Thank you.”

The figure looks at her critically. “You have the look of a warrior about you. Mismatched, though. Your staff…was that salvaged too?”

Rey stiffens. Somehow, this figure knows her too well for her liking. And his voice…she knows that voice. She’s heard it in her head. But surely imaginary friends can’t be real, can they? They can’t exist. She couldn’t have dreamed that man into existence.

“How do you know that?” she says.

The figure smiles. There’s something that’s supposed to be kindly about it, but it sends a shiver up Rey’s spine. “I know all about you, young Rey.”

“I think it’s time you left,” Rey says curtly. How does he know her name? Everything about him is enough to give her chills, and send her fighter’s brain into motion.

She storms off. The figure doesn’t even bother to follow her. She dumps the parts on Unkar Plutt’s kiosk. He only gives her a quarter portion. Rey hates him but doesn’t bother to argue. She feels the anger bubbling up inside her, too familiar, but says nothing.

Then she hears the figure rumble beside her. “If I may interject…I have some parts of value.”

Plutt looks critically over the figure. “You have the look of a trader about you. What do you want?”

“I’ll trade this relic,” and the figure places a red crystal on the kiosk, “For however many portions you desire.”

The look on Plutt’s face is priceless. Rey looks at the figure, surprised — he must be a Dark Sider, but Dark Siders don’t usually offer things like that to mere scavengers, do they? It doesn’t work that way. Dark Siders are evil.

“This…red crystal is worth…” Plutt seems to be trying to work out how much it’s worth. “Forty portions.”

The figure waves his hand. “You will make it sixty portions.”

Plutt’s eyes cloud over. It’s like he’s in a trance. “I will make it sixty portions.”

Rey doesn’t know what to think of it. “What did you do?” she says as they walk away.

“There’s much to be learned of the Force,” the figure says.

“You’re a Force user. A Dark Sider.”

“I prefer to think of myself as above such things,” the figure says. “Balance, if you will.” A beat. “You have Force potential yourself, young Rey. Surely you’ve felt it…”

Rey can remember. The brief explosions of the Force, when she was angry or afraid as a child.

The figure continues. “It’s your family, isn’t it, that’s been keeping you here so long.“

“That’s…personal,” Rey says.

“I know what happened to your parents.”

Rey takes a deep breath. “Show me.”

***

The grave proves to be her breaking point. Even as she looks over it, a meager pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert, she wonders why Plutt didn’t tell her. To control her, no doubt. That’s why he did it. To hurt her. To keep her as his obedient little scavenger, under his thumb.

She cries. She cries until she feels wrung dry. The figure’s hand is on her shoulder, fingers like claws in her skin.

“You knew all along,” says the figure. “You merely hid it away. Because you had to. Because you would have been waiting for nothing.”

Rey dries her eyes. She’s angry, worse than angry. There’s nothing for her here on Jakku. No longer.

***

Plutt is her first blood. She beats him to death with her staff even as the figure encourages her to make him pay for what he did, and the figure later does some clean-up, including persuading the others to forget about the incident as they head to the space port.

“Can you fly, young Rey?” the figure says.

Rey nods. “I’ve never left Jakku, but I’m not a bad pilot.”

“Good.”

They fire up the ship, leaving Jakku behind.

***

The figure — whose name is Snoke — trains her. Rey learns to build her own lightsaber, a double-bladed one, like her staff, and her own mask, as is customary for the Knights of Ren — which she is now a part of. It’s sometime into her training that Snoke asks her to pick a new name.

“Rey of Jakku is no more,” he says. “To pick your new name is to be reborn in balance.”

Rey nods. She thinks of her last name. Navarre. It is who she is, like it or not. And it reminds her why she is here — her family, that pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert, and more.

“Varre,” she says. “I am Varre Ren.”

Snoke smiles, that same kindly-ish smile that gives her chills. “It suits you.”

***

A year passes. Varre Ren, formerly Rey, turns sixteen, trains, and only gets angrier. She thinks of everything Plutt did to her, everything her parents did to her, all she was dealt and all her fellow scavengers were dealt, and anger comes too easily. The girl is lost inside the monster, and she is fine with that. Monsters suffer no weakness, monsters can’t be hurt.

Snoke does give her a warning. “As you grow stronger, your equal in the Light will rise.”

Varre laughs. “I’m not afraid of what the Light will throw at me.”

“You never know,” Snoke says. “Beware, Varre Ren.”

Varre nods. She will not be beaten, no matter what. She will not be weak.

That is a promise.


End file.
